12<\/span>\/12<\/span>\n <\/p>\n

A celebration at MacArthur Park in Los Angeles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

(Luis Sinco \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/span>\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/ps-carousel>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really worried that they will say, \u2018Fine, we will protect you all from deportation, but no work authorization for any of you, there\u2019s no legal basis for it,\u2019\u201d Rodriguez said. \u201cThese are folks who have driver\u2019s licenses, they go to school, they work \u2014 to suddenly cross that out, even if all those folks still remain in the U.S., on many levels, individual, families, the economy, communities \u2014 it would make a huge mess.\u201d<\/p>\n

But with the 2020 presidential election just months away, it\u2019s an open question whether the administration will want to take on DACA again, he said.<\/p>\n

DACA has granted some 700,000 young people temporary protection from deportation and access to work permits since 2012, when President Obama announced it, until 2017, when then-Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions declared the program unconstitutional. DACA recipients, known as Dreamers, were brought to the country as children and passed background checks.<\/p>\n

That includes some 27,000 healthcare workers on the front lines of the coronavirus crisis, and more than 186,000 Dreamers in California alone<\/a>. <\/p>\n

University of California President Janet Napolitano, who launched the DACA program when she was Obama\u2019s secretary of Homeland Security, filed a lawsuit in 2017 against the Trump administration in federal court in San Francisco, along with California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra, arguing that the administration hadn\u2019t given a valid reason for ending DACA. <\/p>\n

Napolitano said Thursday in an interview with The Times that she\u2019d been watching her phone at 7 a.m. every day for the last month for the DACA ruling, which she called \u201ca bit of a surprise.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving created DACA, I fully recognize that it would be possible \u2014 not reasonable \u2014\u00a0but certainly possible for another administration to say that they wanted to follow a different policy,\u201d she said. \u201cYou can\u2019t just do it and kind of unwrite the rules of the road that at its height some 800,000 DACA recipients are relying on with a one-line order, which is what they did.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said the Trump administration may try to deny Dreamers benefits or try again to rescind it, but added: \u201cIt\u2019s not the kind of thing where you want to lose twice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Orders from lower courts in effect froze the program in September 2017 while the administration appealed directly to the Supreme Court. Though the administration was required to renew existing DACA applications, roughly 66,000 children have turned 15 since then, eligible for DACA but blocked from applying, according to the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute.<\/p>\n

Officials at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, told The Times on condition of anonymity late Thursday that they have yet to receive any guidance in the wake of the DACA decision, including whether or not they should restart processing new applications. The administration has also threatened to furlough thousands of personnel this month unless Congress gives the fee-based agency $1.2 billion, saying it is essentially bankrupt, though the cause and extent of the shortfall is disputed.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow will they file new DACA apps if USCIS is shut down?\u201d one official asked.<\/p>\n

Mike Howell, a former Trump administration official in the Homeland Security Department\u2019s Office of the General Counsel and a senior advisor at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, said administration officials should \u201cstop issuing any renewal or work authorization\u201d as they try to fix the procedural issues identified by the court and again rescind DACA. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey were avoiding a politically contentious issue by calling a process foul,\u201d he said of the justices. <\/p>\n

But, he allowed, any renewed attempt to get rid of DACA just got a lot harder. And in the meantime, officials must take new applications and process renewals and work permits. \u201cAbsent any other affirmative action by DHS,\u201d he said, \u201cthe program is operating as it initially was dreamt of.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Homeland Security and Justice departments did not respond Thursday to requests for comment, and neither did White House advisor Stephen Miller, the chief architect of Trump\u2019s restrictive immigration policy, or the National Security Council. <\/p>\n

Two top Homeland Security officials rejected the ruling in a statement, but didn\u2019t signal next steps. Both are in acting roles, underscoring ongoing struggles with record vacancies at the department. <\/p>\n

One, Ken Cuccinelli, a hard-liner with the official title of \u201csenior official performing the duties of the deputy secretary of Homeland Security,\u201d tweeted<\/a>, \u201cTerrible. Awful. Double-standard. Outrageous. Supreme Court says all any President needs is a pen and a phone? Does anyone think they\u2019d let @<\/a>realDonaldTrump<\/a><\/u> just make up \u2018laws\u2019 on sticky notes like @<\/a>BarackObama<\/a><\/u>???\u201d <\/p>\n

Trump, who in the past has expressed concern for the Dreamers, railed on Twitter against the Supreme Court\u2019s decision<\/a> Thursday as \u201chorrible & politically charged\u201d and akin to \u201cshotgun blasts into the face\u201d of his supporters. But neither he nor other White House officials said they\u2019ll try to end DACA again before November. <\/p>\n

In the ruling, the Supreme Court handed Trump one his biggest defeats, on his signature issue, immigration \u2014 but DACA is also a broadly popular policy, including with Republicans and Trump voters. <\/a><\/p>\n

A long-term fix for the roughly 700,000 Dreamers comes back, once again, to Congress. <\/p>\n

\u201cDACA recipients must have a permanent legislative solution,\u201d Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, a high-ranking Republican, said Thursday. \u201cThey deserve nothing less.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the Supreme Court may have given lawmakers even less motivation to act now than in the last eight years under the Obama and Trump administrations, said Steve Vladeck of the University of Texas School of Law: \u201cCongress could fix this tomorrow \u2014 that\u2019s the whole reason why we\u2019re here.\u201d<\/p>\n

The president may be similarly grateful to the court for giving him political cover, Vladeck said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a reason why they didn\u2019t do it right the first time,\u201d he added. \u201cIt\u2019s not just incompetence \u2014 the administration relies on implausible arguments in order to try and deflect responsibility for ending DACA.\u201d <\/p>\n

Elora Mukherjee, director of Columbia Law School\u2019s Immigrants\u2019 Rights Clinic, predicted that the president wouldn\u2019t move to change DACA, but would promise to \u2014 after November. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe administration is figuring out what is the best way to use this opinion to capitalize on solidifying its base,\u201d she said. \u201cSCOTUS gives it cover to not move to change DACA immediately. … \u2018If you elect me, I\u2019ll do this and much more in the next four years.\u2019\u201d
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Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A long-awaited Supreme Court ruling Thursday rejecting President Trump\u2019s attempt to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program brought relief to thousands of DACA recipients \u2014 but also new questions about the administration\u2019s immediate next steps and the still-uncertain future of \u201cDreamers\u201d in the United States. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., speaking for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45110,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[1308,1307],"class_list":{"0":"post-45109","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-court","9":"tag-supreme"},"yoast_head":"\n